


Whumptober 2019: For the Hugs! (FMA Edition)

by Akarri, Ranowa



Series: Akarri and Ranowa's Months of Hugs [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Art, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Muteness, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parental Roy Mustang, Ranowa's HP AU in ch6, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2020-11-23 06:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20887748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akarri/pseuds/Akarri, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Whumptober 2019: collaboration of art and ficsCome inside for angst, sad and hurt favorite characters, and hugs every which way!





	1. Art/fic: Maes, Roy, and Ed, Explosion

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Whumptober 2019!
> 
> Ranowa: This will be a collaboration between myself and Akarri, the second of its kind! All art is by Akarri, all fics are by Ranowa! We're going a bit overboard- most likely will follow a whumptober prompt list, but for Akarri, this is also an exercise in drawing hugs of some form, and for myself, it's an exercise in writing short!fic. (Look at my usual word counts, and you'll see why...) We're also only going to post the arts/fics that we like, so some days may only have art, some may only have fic, some may have nothing at all; some will have both!
> 
> Each chapter title will have whether it's art and/or fic inside, the main characters of the day, and the prompt, so you, the reader, can easily sort it all out to your heart's content. Each chapter notes will contain any applicable Archive warnings for that day's prompt.
> 
> ENJOY <3
> 
> Chapter 1 Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Roy took off running, and he did not stop until the ash-choked air had so suffused his lungs that his vision swam white, and the whole of the world crumpled all the way down.

_"Hughes!" _he screamed, and it came out as nothing at all more pathetic than a desperate whine.

_"MAES HUGHES, ANSWER ME!"_

There wouldn't be an answer.

They'd left Maes behind, because Maes wasn't walking, and none of the squad could've carried him. They'd _left him behind, _and that, as far as Roy was concerned, was a hard and instant _no._

None of his team was dying out here this time.

Not on his fucking watch.

_"HUGHES!" _

Roy coughed and hacked and spat, keeled over on to one knee to wheeze into his hand. He couldn't fucking _see, _dust and sand and ash clouding thicker and thicker the further he fought into the storm. His bare face was scalded, his eyes burned wet, his throat scraped raw as serrated glass. _God DAMN you, Hughes-_

With a hiss through gritted teeth, Roy clenched his fist, tugging his glove tight. A hacked breath later a neat funnel of oxygen purified around him, clean enough to breathe and scrubbed cleaner by the second; 15%, 17%- _fuck, fuck, fuck..._

Roy hit the abandoned outpost just in time for a second earsplitting, ground-shaking _boom _to reverberate from the distance. He swore over his shoulder, glove tugged tighter again. So he wouldn't be alone for long. _Good, _as far as he was concerned. His limit was somewhere long behind in Central and he'd shattered it so completely so long ago he did _not _care. They were coming? _Good._

_Let them come. _

_"Hughes," _he spat, and snapped once. Snap-crackle-_boom!_ "You'd best still be breathing, and that's a direct order, you bastard. You _will _be breathing if you know what's good for you." Snapped again; the crumbling walls, already in severe danger of a collapse and as such, crushing anyone still left inside, blew clean through.

_Because if he's not... _

_If you're not..._

_"HUGHES!"_

_"Colonel!" _

It was not Hughes.

Roy spun on his heel, crunching into the hard, burnt sand with a scalded ankle and a raised hand. In the same instant, there, torn around the corner with braid and coat billowing in the wind, coated from head to foot in ash, smudged soot, and blood, dripping in his hair that was not his own, was Ed.

Fucking _hell._

"What are _you-"_

"Colonel!" Ed shouted again, his voice coming out just as choked and wracked as his. "Don't give me that fucking look, there's no time and you know it. Come on! Get Hughes and _let's go!" _

Roy made a mental note to thank all the gods he did not believe in for the foresight of Riza Hawkeye, the loyalty of Edward Elric, and the apparent insanity, of every single member of his team.

Then, he tore straight off into the devastated outpost, this time, with Ed right there, hot on his heels, behind him.

They found Maes collapsed just back where Roy had known he'd be, protected back in the far corner in the safest spot he could've found. A rifle once in his hands, gone slack and cold to the floor, and his face, as white and unmoving as glass.

Shit. _Shit._

"No," Roy snarled, and he blinked and found himself across the room, dropped to his knees and one hand curled as if to backhand him across the face. No, Hughes, fucking _no._

"Is he...?"

"He's breathing," Roy snapped tensely, and said nothing more than that. They both knew that there was no guarantee of keeping him staying that way; not for long. He curled his gloved fist tighter still and went for Maes' uniform with his other hand, yanking the coat aside to find the gunshot that had caused all of this. Cauterize it, pick him up, get back to camp. Cauterize it, pick him up, get back to camp. "That's it, you bastard, _come on-"_

A third boom echoed in the distance. Closer than before. Some part of Roy acknowledged Ed vanishing out of the corner of his eye, flickered back towards what had once been a door; the whole rest of him saw nothing at all beyond the whiteness of Maes' skin and the cooling spill of red blood, splashed over his stomach like a puddle of ink.

"Hey, bastard, hate to break it to you? But we just ran out of time."

"One minute," Roy hissed, fingertips rubbed together to burn a spark into existence. _Just one dammed minute, Fullmetal-_

"We don't have one minute. We don't have one second, Mustang; if we leave _right _now, then they will see us and we'll get mowed down before we got five feet away."

_"One minute!" _He tensed again, pressing his hand to Maes' chest. His stomach contents were currently being burned shut, _right now, _and there was no reaction. No reaction. Shit, shit,_ shit. _"Fullmetal, go! I can't move Hughes yet but I can hold them off. You, go, now! Get underground- you can still make it back! I'll link up with you later!"

They both knew that was a lie.

_"GO, _Fullmetal! _That's a direct order!" _

They both knew that there would not be a later, if Roy stayed.

And Roy was staying.

Ed stared at him through the fall of his ravaged braid and soaked hair, his fierce eyes all but feral in the ash-choked light. He smirked once, shoulders rolled with a petulant sort of an almost child-like huff, and just like that, cracked his knuckles, fist by fist.

"Thanks for making it an order, at least," he called. Or, perhaps, it was closer to a growl, his voice so low and hard-fought from the ruined air. "That makes it easier for me to ignore you."

"Full-"

"Come on, Mustang. We both know I'm never going to do what you tell me to."

Roy tensed wordlessly, again. Something close to affection, closer to despair, and just a shade away from heartbreak tightened agonizingly in his throat.

Ed, without one single more disparaging comment to give, rolled up his sleeves, tossed his hair back, and crept up to the crumbling dust of what had once been a pillar. He hid himself out of the way, tense and dangerous and every inch a soldier, and he shouted, "You'd better back me up, Mustang!"

When the gunfire came, Ed was there. When the gunfire came, Ed clapped.

The explosions started.


	2. Art/fic: Ed and Roy, Human Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos/comments!!! <3
> 
> Ranowa: the month of hugs is supposed to be me writing fics under 1k. It's day four, and I've only managed it once. Derp.
> 
> Chapter 2 warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

At first look, Ed thought the stupid, bastardified, actual braindead idiot had gone and gotten himself _shot._

All the signs were there- the bodyslam of a collapse, Mustang's tackle bringing them both to the ground, the hard grunt when they went down despite _Ed_ being the one to soften _Mustang's_ fall, the _gunshot. _This was it. This was _it, _the bastard had gone and gotten himself fucking _shot._

But Mustang was rolling off him before the alarm had even gotten a chance to properly take hold. Sharp and white and all narrow angles in the low light, one hand hauling at Ed's metal one while the other snapped overhead, bearing a flicker of light and smoke and screaming. "Come on," Mustang hissed, and if the growl had an edge of strain to it Ed only heard it vanish under the bite of steel and authority. "Stop lazing about and get up! Exit's this way, Fullmetal- _now!" _

And with that, Mustang was gone, pelting out of the room with his uniform billowing and his dangerous hands ready, and Ed was left behind in the dust.

Asshole.

Ed did, then, scrabble after him. Tore out of the room and tried really hard not to look at the scorched, destroyed body on the floor behind him. Mustang wasn't _faster, _the rat bastard, but his stride was lon- more... tallerish... _fuck, _and that left Ed at a severe disadvantage when he was actually trying to go fast. Now, apparently, watching the flicker of his uniform vanish around the corner, he was going as fast as he could.

Of course he was. After _all _the lectures Mustang had nagged on about, sitting up there on his high horse wagging his finger about not running off alone, just _what _was the first thing the bastard himself did, the second he got in the field? Run. Off. Alone.

See, _this _was why he didn't like taking missions with anyone but Al.

Another snap, echoed from up ahead. Another scream, another boom, another hot fire-bright _woosh _of light.

"Will you _stop that?!" _Ed screamed, breaking into a flat-out sprint. "Stop doing everything on your own! _Slow down! _You listening, Mustang?!"

Mustang must have, indeed, been listening, because the next corner he rounded brought him to the colonel himself, one shoulder propped against the wall as he straightened his gloves and tugged at his jacket. Casual as could fucking be. "Taking your time, Fullmetal?" he called back, not even glancing over his shoulder to commence mocking. "Told you before- must drink your milk to keep up with adults."

"Yeah? And what about you? Sure you didn't pull a muscle trying to show off?" Ed smirked as he clapped, reforming his arm into a blade as he headed up to join Mustang's side. "Or are you just _out of breath, _old man?"

Mustang glanced downwards and sideways, narrowing an eye at him past a fringe of drooping hair and a face that almost glowed white in the darkness. His fingers twitched dangerously once.

He _was_ out of breath, Ed noted triumphantly. _HA! _Not so fast after all, now, was he?

"Pipsqueak," Mustang pronounced, steady as a fact of life.

Then, with a hard cuff to the shoulder, the colonel swirled on to leave Ed, glowering, behind.

The next corner was the last, at least, thank god for that. And Ed hadn't been the only one to hear Mustang's very particular and dangerous brand of alchemy, snaps that reverberated into earsplitting explosions; he rounded the corner and found the exit deserted, the cowards clearly having run the second they'd realized they were so badly outmatched, and, well, that was that.

A little prick of annoyance stabbed in his stomach, red-faced that it had been for Mustang, not him, and he swallowed it down, just as quickly. As if those thugs would've stood a chance against him, either.

"Looks like we're home-free, then?" he called, glancing back to where the colonel had, yet again, propped himself up against the nearest wall. "Let's get out of here, then, and by the way, remind me to never take a mission with you ever again. This _sucked _in every possible way." He clapped a second time, automail arm morphing back into shape, and sent back one last irritated glance as he faced ahead.

Mustang did not follow him.

"Hey! What's the matter, you want to spend the night here or something?" Ed turned mid-step, facing towards Mustang now instead of the exit. "_Maybe_, if it's so tiring for you to do it all alone, you should've let me _help. _Which, you know, is the only reason I'm _here."_

Still, nothing. His pale face still strained and unyielding in the darkness, his breathing rough and heartbeat-quick, like he was trying to catch his breath but couldn't quite manage it. One hand, still bracing, clenched, and tight, against the wall.

His annoyance flagged, and right next to it, there, right then, moved in just the slightest flicker of concern.

Ed inched closer, again. He spread his hands uselessly by his sides, unsure if he was supposed to help nudge him upright, try and shake some focus back into him, or maybe just yell at him. Slowly, still unsure, he pushed closer still.

"Must-"

The colonel collapsed.

_"Mustang!" _

Ed got his arms around him just in time, the both of them staggering in such a drunken stumble it would've been humiliating if it wasn't so abruptly alarming. He grappled and fought the sudden dead weight, spitting shocked curses, trying to get him up- what the _fuck, _what was wrong, what was happening, _what was happening-_

"Ed," Mustang mumbled. His name came out a lethargic slur, but the sudden grip of his hands on his shoulders was bruisingly tight, and his overbright eyes burned like coals in the dead of night.

"I may have miscalculated," was what he said.

And what Ed saw, for the very first time, was the blood: wet and slippery and soaking through the uniform at last, from where he had, in fact, been shot.


	3. Art/fic: Maes and Roy, Broken Voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so sorry for the wait!
> 
> This one is based off Akarri's wonderful work Postmortem, found both here and ffn. It might not make much sense without having read it!
> 
> Archive Warnings: None, but discussions of self-harm/suicide attempt, so take care <3

It was all purely psychological, in the end. He was sure.

...

98% sure.

He tried testing it, when he was alone, or as alone as he could get, in his current questionable circumstances. He tried watching his reflection in mugs of coffee or honeyed tea, massaging around the rough scar with one hand, opening his mouth, and- there it was. He'd do it at night, too, when he was sure whoever his minder for the day was asleep themselves; he'd cover his mouth with his hand, and he'd focus on being so quiet that the noise didn't even reach his own ears, and he'd try again.

Hence the evidence, for his most recent hypothesis.

There was nothing physically wrong with his throat at all. He could speak, and he could speak just fine.

He just couldn't do it when they were _watching him. _

Ed doubted. If it really was Ed. Ed watched him sometimes, with narrowed eyes that were too wary through the fall of his hair. Ed tried to trick or startle him into speaking, more than once; more than once, Roy almost fell for it. He could _feel _the words, caught in his throat with a physical weight as solid as a golf ball.

Maes didn't. If it really was Maes. Maes got angry when Ed murmured to him about it, thinking Roy was stupid as well as mute, not listening to them when he heard every word; Maes snapped, _"He's fine, he's still healing," _and would be gruff and fold his arms and glare at the floor.

Roy, for his part, didn't care what they thought.

He kept his mouth shut when they asked him questions, and he whispered hoarsely to himself very late at night, and he didn't care if Maes thought he'd cut his own vocal cords in half or Ed narrowed his eyes at his back because he knew he hadn't.

The worst part of it?

He didn't even really know _why_.

Maybe it was just safer, to keep quiet. If he didn't say anything, then that was just one less variable to contend with, one less way he had to potentially wreck the new, precious stability of the situation he'd found himself in. Maybe this was Envy's plan, after all. When interrogation and sensory deprivation had failed, perhaps lulling him into a false sense of security was meant to succeed instead. He wouldn't tell _Envy _what he wanted, but surely he'd tell Maes or Ed, if they asked him in just the right way, if they plied him with warm tea and gentle looks and comfort instead of darkness. Surely he'd tell _them._

Those were comforting answers. Roy liked them, and when forced to confront the reasoning behind his enforced, constant silence, those were usually the ones that he resorted to. Mutely. In his head. Since he wasn't exactly communicating it aloud; that was rather the point.

Really, though- Roy wasn't so sure.

Really, though, very late at night, when Roy slipped a bandaged hand to hide under the blankets and pressed it to his mouth, tasting gauze and the coppery wisp of blood, and he licked his lips and he finally dared to hum aloud for the first time in hours-

It wasn't because of anything practical or sane. Not really.

If he spoke, then maybe it would end.

This new stability that he had, here. This new place that he had woken up to without explanation whatsoever, where Ed had yet antagonize him even once and Maes told him he was safe and that it was over, that nobody was going to be able to touch him here ever again. This suspiciously _wonderful _place with tea and dim light and warm blankets, his _home, _would you look at that, this very, very, very pleasant scenario that was ludicrously improbable and had just oh so _conveniently _appeared _just after_ Roy had cut his own throat and bled into dizzying nothing.

Roy had already been weighing the possibility that he _was_, actually, dead. He'd been weighing it for some time, now.

As far as he was concerned, these more recent developments simply tipped the scales, and made that far more likely than not.

The fact of it was, this, here, _right now, _was comfortable. It was intoxicatingly, beautifully safe. It was, for the first time in recent memory, bearable.

Roy could not shake the soul-deep terror that if he opened his mouth just enough to question it, if he faced this Ed and Maes head on and tested them and either played along or just stated what they all already knew aloud, said _**this is not real-**_

Then it would go away.

That would break the spell, and all of this would go away, and it would never, ever come back.

Roy breathed in deeply, again. He curled two, rough with gauze hands around the nearby cooling cup of decaf coffee, nudging it just close enough for him to be able to glimpse his murky reflection, just at the rim.

He watched his reflection open his mouth, silent and expressionless.

Slowly, gently, hummed in his throat.

_This is me. I am alive. This is me._

_This is real. _

The sound didn't come out familiar or recognizable. It felt like an insurmountable mental hurdle, in between the faint hum and acknowledging _this is me. This belongs to me. They can't take it from me. This is real. _

But it _was_ real. Roy could taste it in his ravaged throat, and he licked his lips and breathed and it was terrifying, but it was real.

"Roy?"

Roy froze.

Hesitant footsteps, behind him. Tentative and wary, in a way Maes never had been before.

Wordless quiet cut off in his throat.

Silently, he slipped the cup off the table, tilting it back and washing the vacuum down, down, down. He didn't look at Maes, when his friend inched warily just into his line of view, and, as ever, he said nothing.


	4. Art/fic: Ed and Roy, Stab Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so sorry for the wait! ...Again! :D
> 
> This one is fanart once again, this time for Akarri's wonderful work Chained, found here and on ffn! Might not make much sense without it.
> 
> Akarri: I swear they're not all going to be fanart/fics of my own fics.. I'm just enjoying my newfound power to make Ranowa write about whatever I want. :'D
> 
> Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence (in the art)

There were benefits, Roy had learned, to having nails driven through his arms by a psychopath.

A hard-earned lesson, actually, beaten into him unwillingly upon a decade straight in the military- _every _cloud had a silver lining; sometimes, he just had to look very, very hard to find it. Every rainy day storm cloud had a dark side and a light, and a silver lining in between, like a silver sandwich, and sometimes, all he could do was take a bite out of the silver sandwich.

Or- yes. Right. Something like that.

That was benefit one, Roy considered fuzzily, a lazy smile spreading across his face as he sloped across his desk, to having nails driven through his arms by a psychopath.

The painkillers were _marvelous. _

From her desk nearby, paperwork spread neatly about and pen caught in her hair, Hawkeye narrowed her eyes at him. A thin stack of paperwork straightened in her hands with a loud _shick, _her ever watchful gaze still on him, and she arranged a new file before herself, all without saying a word.

_Abort mission. Abort mission! ABORT!_

Roy was still a bit too loopy to sober genuinely, but with a surge of clear-headedness, he did manage to wrestle up enough sense to clear away the dazed smile, all the same. If Hawkeye suspected just how fuzzy his head was, he _would _get sent home in a cab, and the rest of his week would be immediately relegated to couch-sleeping and being kept quite firmly out of the loop by one very efficient sharpshooter.

That just wouldn't do at all.

Benefit two. Benefit two, yes, moving on. Benefit two: _no paperwork._

A second grin squirmed to existence, this one, spilling its way all across his face like the best coffee in Central.

Glorious, wasn't it? His best-engineered plan in years. Except, that made it sound like he'd _planned _it, getting literally nailed into a desk by a psychopath, and he hadn't, really. He was going to spend the next year trying to live it down that Riece had gotten the better of him so easily. But, for the time being, that meant no paperwork, because moving his hands with the coordination and tension required was just this side of beyond him. Even Hawkeye had admitted his signature was too much for his ravaged arms to handle, at the moment.

Which was _glorious!_

And... also meant no snapping.Which was the... dark side of the sandwich. Yes. Something like that.

The same muscles were engaged in using a pen, as compared with snapping his fingers, and he'd been told, in no uncertain terms, that he had to refrain from it. Not unless he wanted to potentially start bleeding all over his desk. Hawkeye had confiscated his gloves with nothing more than a knowing look, leaving Roy feeling bare and exposed and with skin that crawled, even fully aware that he had the best bodyguard in all of Amestris watching his back.

Roy huffed to himself, scowling down at his desk, the throbbing in his arms now perfectly in time with the black mood, brewing just at the edge of his mind. So there was still a downside to all this, then.

Well, he supposed there _did _have to be at least one.

Benefit three. Benefit three. That was... things like this always came in groups of three, didn't they? Surely there was one- somewhere in the fuzzy wisps in his head, somewhere in the- yes. That thing. That thing, that he was thinking about. The...

"The thing," Roy muttered to himself, then glowered. He narrowed his eyes at his stubbornly empty desk, searching for the answers in the scarred veins of the wood. 'The _thing," _he muttered again, thumb and forefinger dragged together for a sloppy snap.

Hawkeye's gaze, this time, was so piercing he felt it through his stomach.

"Sir," his lieutenant began, her words professional and calm over a backbone of steel. She pushed to her feet, straightening yet another file. "Perhaps you should consider taking a rest in one of the officer rooms."

That wasn't what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him to _go home. _Which, he supposed, was fair, because he really wasn't being of much help here.

"No," he said back- though really, at the moment, he'd like nothing more than an actual, honest-to-god, _nap. _

"Sir-"

"No, there's. Something..." _Wasn't _there? Something that he had to do? He was sure of it- yes, there was _something-_

The door to his office swung open again, jolting his already off-kilter thoughts to fall right off the tracks, and Ed and Al stepped inside.

Oh, right. _That _was the something that he had to do.

Roy wasn't the only one to smile at the boys, head still fuzzy but fists curled in his lap, now, the clarity the pain brought just enough for him to keep his mouth shut.

They looked better. Ed had slept the night for the first time in what had to be weeks, and Al was back home, and they were just _better._ But better was a short-lived mercy, because Al stuck close to Ed's side as a burr, and Ed still with smudges under his eyes, shoulders hunched about his ears, and _better_ did not mean _good, _and _that _was the something that Roy had had to do.

"Boys," he greeted, raising one lazy, waving hand. "Been a while, hasn't it, pipsqueak?"

That was all it took.

Color rose in Ed's sallow face, the hand that was too close to Al's gone loose with surprise, and there was a splutter of life in his eyes that was everything they'd all been missing. "Bastard-" Ed started, halfway to snarling at him, halfway to beaming, all the way back to something resembling normal, and Roy smirked back.

Yes,_ there _it was.

The third benefit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranowa: yes I /did/ quote Zuko in here thank you for asking :D


	5. Art/fic: Ed and Roy, "Stay Quiet"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranowa: At this point, we might as well stop apologizing for being late, and just accept we'll be late xD My schedule and Akarri's don't sync up well enough for her to finish an art, and me to write something based off that art, all in one day, so most updates will probably take two or three days. (Seriously, it's October 25, and this is prompt TWELVE).
> 
> Apologies, and we hope you enjoy <3 Thanks so much for all the comments/kudos!!!
> 
> Archive Warnings: None

"Stay _quiet, _Ed."

"You fucking stay quiet, _you're _the one making all the noise, _you're _the one talking, _you're _the one-"

_"Ed!"_

Ed clamped his mouth shut, glaring with blazing eyes that screamed murder all the same and clenched fists that were one wrong word away from a shouting match. He breathed out hard once, an angry snuff of a growl, and then, fell back into step beside him.

His hands hurt. Both gloves, sliced through and useless, the arrays tattered into bloodstained tapestries of shredded cotton and nothing more. His face itched and stung, scraped red by fingernails in all the attempts to scratch away crusted blood that wasn't his own.

Roy kept his mouth shut about it.

Because Ed, next to him, was so much worse.

"This way," Roy muttered, with a flex of a lacerated hand. A flex that snapped into a clench of aching fingers, when the flex alone was enough to make him hiss through gritted teeth. Fuck. _Fuck. _"Come on."

Ed gave him another filthy look, one that was half violent frustration, half something just a little closer to fear.

That fear spoke volumes, and it was that fear, he knew, that got the alchemist followed him across the way without word or a single complaint.

Ed ran with a steadily worsening limp, one that was still silent but clearly caused a great deal amount of pain for it to be so. He smacked away Roy's hands whenever he tried to look at it, and glowered and huffed like an angry bull whenever Roy dared to ask him about it. All he could tell was that it was worse than yesterday.

It was worsening, now, by the hour.

Lacerated shoulder, too, a stubborn and festering gash just near the automail. He could still transmute, and that was clearly all that Ed cared about.

Blood on his face, that _was _his.

"What was that?!"

"What was what?" Roy searched in the darkness, each breath a shallow rasp in his throat; there was nothing. Nothing but indistinct shadows and the cold expanse of the desolate unknown. "Ed-"

"Over there! Didn't you-"

_"Shh!"_

_"Didn't you hear that?" _Ed jerked away from his grip, pointing with his chin into the darkness, other hand occupied entirely with clutching his wounded shoulder. _"It's over there. Didn't you-?"_

Roy pursed his lips, and kept silent.

No. No, he hadn't heard or seen anything.

And Ed, chalk-white next to him, staring up at him with wide, increasingly frantic eyes, was clearly losing it.

"Come on," he insisted quietly again, voice as low as he could get it, and tugged Ed along again.

It came out rough, that time.

Roy cleared his throat irritably, and kept walking.

There had to be a way out. Somewhere around here, hidden in the murky darkness and the click-claw of claws on the furrowed floor, dragging footsteps of something with greater than four paws, there had to be a way out. They hadn't found it yet, and his pocket watch told him exactly how many hours they'd been searching- _too many- _but-

Roy swallowed hard, steeling back away against the undercurrent of nerves in his stomach, and kept walking.

_It has to be here... _

Ed was already losing it. Terrifying as it was, the absolute last thing either of them could handle now was if Roy lost it right after him.

They stole closer to another wall yet again, Ed limping and stubborn-faced, his jaw clenched against a whine of pain and his eyes flashing bloody murder when Roy dared to so much as glance at his leg. "Fuck off," the kid muttered, shoulders tense and hunched. His eyes flickered again, searching about in something unspoken; something perilously close to terror.

Roy, once again, kept his mouth shut.

Then, he saw it.

A flicker of light.

There it was- just the faintest flicker of white light. Barely more than a frail gleam hissed out in the blackness that suffocated everything there was around them.

And underneath it, once again, was the whisper of, sickeningly familiar, the scrape of claws.

Then it was gone.

Utter darkness and silence, once again, a quiet broken only by the ragged rasp of breaths by his side and the warmth of dripping blood, pressed through his clenched hand with every step. Ed, next to him, limping still stubbornly along, clearly had not seen.

Roy clenched his jaw, and tugged Ed back around in the other direction without a word.

_Stay calm. Breathe. Trick of the light, is all it is. Breathe, dammit. Calm..._

The next time it came, they both flinched together. So violently that Ed rocked into Roy's heels, arm flung out and cracked whine broken up through a whole octave into an alarmed squeak, and there was Roy was, stock still and ice cold inside and out. Ed frozen with his hands infinitesimally apart, one flinch away from a clap, and Roy, paralyzed just the same- one pathetically useless hand raised to snap, snug in one particularly useless glove.

Definitely had not imagined it this time.

Fuck, fuck, _really_ had not imagined it.

"What was-" Ed started, voice nothing at all beyond a high-pitched squeak.

_"Shh!" _

Together, they pressed against the nearest remotely stable surface again. Roy's back to the wall, Ed's back to Roy, and when Ed gave another squeak of surprise it was for Roy to cover his mouth with one bleeding, desperately cold hand.

"Stay quiet," he hissed. "Stay quiet!"

The scratching on the floor was louder, now. Assuredly closer than before- and with every dragging footstep, drawing closer still.

And all Roy could do was stay stock still behind Ed, holding the frozen alchemist tight against him breaths catching somewhere about his throat every time, commanding him to stay quiet, as the thing continued to hunt closer.


	6. Art/fic: Ed and Roy, Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranowa: so sorry for the especially long wait! Akarri had a con to prepare for, and I've been especially drowned in ao3 staffer things this week. Yes, it is November, and yes, we are still working on the October prompts! 
> 
> A change-up, for once- this ficlet is in my Harry Potter AU! It takes place at the very end of the child era, what would be the equivalent of the Battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, so ended up being just a little teaser for events to come. (hopefully. eventually. ;-;) Enjoy!!!
> 
> No Archive Warnings Apply

Roy didn't manage to relink back up with the trio until it was well past two in the morning. The stones under his feet gone hot and cracked, the denizens of the paintings on the walls all fled, and the halls and classrooms that had dominated the entire second half of his life reduced to nothing more than a wrecked, smoldering ruin.

None of which mattered in the very slightest, beyond the exhilarating rush of this finally being the end.

He heard the familiar voice first, shouting over a cacophonous din of exploded spells and general chaos; giving orders? Roy didn't know, and rounded after it with his blood pounding, cursing a Death Eater aside with little more than a wave of his hand.

And there, in fact, they were.

All three of the trio were alive and well, healthier than he surely had any right to expect, and grown into themselves in a way he never might've believed possible before this hellfire of a year. Winry was down on her knees, barely visible through the throng of his students save for the back-and-forth of her ponytail, a splash of blonde in the sea of black as she worked over one of the injured. Sixth year, Ravenclaw, in his alchemy class, too young to be here but he wasn't surprised in the slightest that he still was. Al stood next to her, his back to Roy but the fall of his hair distinctive, waving his wand at nothing and pacing as if in a labyrinth, muttering charms that thickened the dust-choked air with an electrifying heat. Roy didn't even know what the spells were. Al was brilliant enough that he knew he didn't have to ask.

And there, in the center of it all, was Ed.

He gestured and commanded without a second thought, the maverick spirit of him still cut through but tempered now, like a cut of steel hammered into a flawless blade. "-need to split up," he was saying, wand pointed to his throat to amplify his voice over the the boom and crack of battle around them. "Winry, you take Tringham with you, try and find Madam Pomfery. She'll need all the help she can get. Al-"

He broke off for a moment, listening to whatever it was that his brother had to say, then nodded with an angry toss of his hair. There was a cut on his forehead, a smattering of blood down the angles of his face, but somehow it only made him look even more alive. "Right. You take whoever you need, and try and find Ling. I don't care that he's a Slytherin, I know that asshole'll be here and I know he's on our side!"

He was right. He was right, and Roy didn't even have to marvel at it. Ling was here, and last he'd seen him, he'd been shouting something ridiculous and hexing a ceiling down onto a herd of Death Eaters with Lan-Fan by his side.

He had no idea how Ed knew that, but had given up questioning the infuriating way the kid had about being _right about bloody everything _quite some time ago.

Ed gave orders like a natural, and soon the students had dispersed, filing off like soldiers to leave just the one behind. Blood slick down his face and dusted, torn, panting, but _whole. _The year on the run showed, his robes exchanged for some flashy, ridiculous red coat, hair longer, a new hard glint in his eye and wariness about him that spoke of hardship, but he was alive and that was all Roy still wanted from the end of this war.

With a hard tug and swirl at his coat, Ed turned around. He gave a little hop to land off the haphazard piece of rubble, what he'd had to stand on just to be seen in the crowd of taller students before, and with an angry grunt, started on back towards the castle.

Only for his fire-hot eyes to finally find Roy, and his face to light up like the gleaming spells around them.

_"You!" _

Roy grinned back, the expression perhaps shaky in its breathless, pathetic relief, but he just didn't _care, _and he just raised a hand even as Ed tore for him over the destroyed ground. "Yes, me. It's certainly been a while, hasn't it, Ed-"

"You stupid _bastard," _Ed choked, and with no further ado than that, caught him in the tightest hug of his entire adult life.

And then, it had been a _year_, a year of separate but equally unlivable, miserable hells for the both of them, Ed and Al on the run and Roy trapped here, so Roy hugged him back and didn't let go even if Ed's fist had pounded so hard into his back it bruised.

"It's okay," he murmured back. "It's okay."

It really, really wasn't. It was _not._

But it was the closest it had been to being so in a very long time.

This time, Roy finally had it back in his power to fight to drag himself out of the depths of this hell, and Ed and Al right alongside him.

"This-" Ed shoved back at last, shaking his head wildly, still grappling onto his arms and now as if for dear life. He let go with one to wave at the sheer madness that had crumbled apart around them, the spells, the collapsing walls, Hogwarts being brought to her knees underneath them and not the slightest thing they could do to stop it. "Mustang, holy shit, this- this is a _nightmare, _I can't-"

"No." Roy shook his head once, tugging Ed back to stand by his side with one hand on his shoulder, gripping him there tightly to stay. "This is for real, this time."

For real. For better or for worse, this, right here, with Ed bleeding and hardened and changed by his side-

This was ending tonight.

Roy might have never wanted Ed to fight in a war at all, but if he had to, he reflected miserably, hand squeezing on his shoulder, then he would've chosen this way.

Ed, soldier-ready and dangerous, and ready to fight by his side.


	7. Art/fic: Maes and Roy, "Stay with  Me"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're baccckkkk!!!
> 
> Ranowa: Very, very sorry- we ended up having to take a hiatus a bit, first for Akarri, then for me (okay, the... majority was for me...) but, things appear to be cleared up now. So, now, we are back to finish whumptober! 
> 
> In late December! ^_^
> 
> (I EDITED IT TO PUT THE ART IN I'M SORRY I FORGOT IT'S BEEN A WHILE)
> 
> No Archive Warnings Apply (but, this chapter does deal with alcoholism. Take care of yourself, dear reader <3)

Roy Mustang, Maes determined, needed one thing. And that one thing was to stop getting so completely, utterly _shit-faced. _

It was some counterintuitive, entirely unhelpful bullshit, was what it was. Maes would actually understand, if it helped. He would. He wouldn't condone it, oh no sir, because he was the Best Friend, and budding alcoholism wasn't something Best Friends ought to condone. But he'd at least be able to understand it, and some days even support it. If it actually did make things easier for Roy, in any way at all, then there was a part of Maes that probably wouldn't even have the heart to try and take the bottle away.

If it helped.

One big, fat, whopping _if._

Alcohol had also never helped anybody, ever, deal with anything at all, ever, in the history of time, so, quite honestly, he didn't even know what the hell Roy had been expecting in the first place. It was a depressant, so Roy really had no right to be so damn well surprised when getting sloshed meant getting _depressed, _every single time. It lowered inhibitions and defenses, so Roy had no right to go after a bottle of whiskey to 'take the edge off', to, _'feel better', _and then somehow not see it coming that it would just lead to him being miserable and on edge and fighting something close to a nervous breakdown all night long. It was an actual fucking poison that could kill people, so Roy really had no right at all to be oh so shocked when it made him throw up and struggling through a searing headache under Hawkeye's glare in the office the next day, _every single time. _

Really, Maes wasn't all that surprised himself, either.

Roy was not stupid. Criminally reckless, maybe. But not _stupid. _He was a chemist and a scientist, could drink most of the military, Maes included, under the table, and had grown up around alcohol since he could barely walk.

No, Roy Mustang, for all his very many, varied arrogant bastard, smart-ass faults, was not stupid.

He knew exactly what that bottle would do, every time he cracked it open.

"M's." One sloppy, almost impressively uncoordinated hand flopped to tug on his sleeve, trying to tug him closer. All that was really accomplished was the loosening of numb fingers, and his hand dropping to dangle stupidly above the floor. "Should... shouldn't, you..."

"Yeah?"

The words trailed off into nothing more than a morose shake of a head, Roy slumped at all but a ninety degree angle to plant his face into the nearest pillow. Whatever he said next, Maes honestly had no idea- just that the words, exhausted and flat, took their sweet time to trail off, crumbled into a muffled, "...my fault."

"Hm?" Maes nudged one heavy foot, watching with mild interest as it slid and thumped rather like an inanimate object rather than a moving, functioning limb. "That you sound like you've melted your brain to the consistency of yogurt, about? I agree, that is your fault. It is completely your fault, you self-loathing idiot; it's your fault every time you do this. You're going to drink yourself into a coma one day and it's going to be entirely on you, and apparently I'm going to be there tossing you into a cold shower after it, because apparently I can't stay away."

And now the sobbing was starting, of course, again, just great; not at anything Maes had said, surely not. It'd be impressive if Roy could even listen enough to follow the little speech from beginning to end. No, just the mental defenses taken a sledgehammer to, Roy's cold, hard arrogance and smug strength during the day melted into hysteria, because that was what alcohol _did, _and Roy wouldn't stop fucking drinking. And now he was doing it all again; pathetic little dry sobs, shoulders heaving, face planted still into the pillow, mumbled words utterly incoherent, and Maes might've just been sympathetic if this wasn't the third dammed time this week.

"...Maes," he sighed. Voice gone thick and congested, and his tongue so slurred and heavy it made Maes' own stomach roll. Or maybe that was the smell of alcohol, so strong he felt just a little bit drunk himself.

The hand flopped for him again, and this time, somehow, caught just firmly enough in his sleeve to not fall.

"Ssst. Stay." The fingers tugged, and they tugged and they tugged and they tugged, and they kept tugging until Maes gave in at last, and gripped them back in his own. "Stay with me."

Maes, this time, sighed himself.

It was quiet, for a bit.

"I shouldn't, you know." He raised an eyebrow, nodding at the turned over glass and bottle, chinking faintly still on the glass table with every particularly uncoordinated move Roy made. "You keep getting yourself into this."

_Give me a reason I should stay, when you could choose to leave. _

"M's," he mumbled, again.

Maes stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed! Feedback is always welcome and appreciated <3
> 
> (Please bear in mind: we're doing BBC Sherlock and MCU for this month as well, and we're also busy individuals outside of ficdom ;u; Some days will have an art/fic/hug for another fandom, and some we may have to take a break entirely. Please bear with us here, and hopefully, we can all have some fun!)


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